


Little By Little, We Meet In The Middle

by keyandbeemagician



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Quentin is bad with emotions, Re-establishing relationships, So is Eliot, Stress Baking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:27:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27658823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyandbeemagician/pseuds/keyandbeemagician
Summary: Quentin is avoiding, and Eliot has taken up stress baking.
Relationships: Fen/Margo Hanson/Josh Hoberman, Margo Hanson & Eliot Waugh, Margo Hanson/Josh Hoberman, Quentin Coldwater & Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater & Margo Hanson, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 12
Kudos: 34





	1. I can't imagine how my life would be

**Quentin's Point of View**

Since his self-imposed near-death experience in the Mirror World and resulting conversations with both Alice and Eliot that Q regularly tries to block out, Quentin has developed a way of working out when he really does need to leave his room and when people are just nagging him unnecessarily. It’s not like he doesn’t do anything. He has his pity position from Dean Fogg as the newest Brakebills professor. But, other than that, he does a lot of what he likes to call reflecting. What he knows is that if Julia is still bringing him coffee and cigarettes without bitching at him about it - he likes that Julia isn’t just one of those friends who blink and do what he says because they’re afraid of how fragile he’s become - then he's fine. If Julia starts alternating coffee with water, Quentin finds his way into the kitchen and gets something to eat, so that when she inevitably asks him if he has, he doesn't have to lie. He thinks one of the biggest problems with knowing someone since you were eight, is that they know when you’re lying.

Anyway. There's a steady pattern that unfolds, from Julia refusing to bring him any more caffeine to sending Alice in to, what, Quentin isn't sure, bug him into leaving his room - they’re trying this thing where even if they’re broken up they’re still in each other’s lives, and he’s not going to lie… it’s awkward as hell - and then, finally, Margo arrives.

Margo is currently leaning against his desk and looking distinctly unimpressed.

"Quentin," she says. "Quentin. Hey, Asshole, I'm not standing here for the good of my health. I have a country to save and you’re wasting my time"

"Well, you're not doing my health any good either."

Margo puts her hands over the pages of Quentin’s latest book and stops him from reading. "Quentin."

Q looks up.

Margo doesn't let go of the book. She's holding Quentin’s gaze like she's telepathically communicating what she wants. Except, Q isn't telepathic, so that plan is doomed to failure.

"I've been to work every day this week," Quentin says. "And it's Saturday, so I'm allowed to be here."

"That's - not really the point," says Margo. "Have you actually been outside this week?"

"I just said - "

"Yeah," says Margo, 

"I’m not stopping you from saving Fillory," Quentin says. "I don't think this is your problem."

"Q - "

Quentin keeps going. "And we've got the papers to grade, and I need to - "

"Quentin - "

" - figure shit out here and - "

"Quentin!"

Q stops talking.

"If you don't leave this room in the next half hour," Margo says, "I will resort to desperate measures."

And when she says desperate measures, he knows that she means Eliot. It’s only because of what Quentin said when they last spoke that he's not here. That he's never here. That he’s so frequently working undercover as a court magician to the so-called Dark King, making Q insanely jealous. It’s not that Quentin and Eliot haven’t seen one another since their big conversation, but things have been weird, and they’re both actively avoiding. Or, maybe Q is actively avoiding, and Eliot is trying to respect Quentin’s self-imposed boundaries. 

The thing was, Eliot had said that he loved Quentin about three seconds after finding out that he was alive and would remain that way for the foreseeable future. Quentin had replied by looking at Alice, and really that had been that (for both relationships in the end, but that was a different story). Eliot and Margo had fucked off to Fillory - to both save the world and to give Quentin some much-needed space- and had hardly been back to the apartment since.

Quentin says, snorting, "I think I can take it."

Margo raises an eyebrow. "Do you really want to take that chance?"

Q thinks about who he’s actually talking to and reconsiders.

"Fine," he says, finally pulling his hands away from his book and out of Margo’s grip. "I'll think about it."

Margo eyes him, walking to the door. "You've got twenty-nine minutes to think about it."

"I'm so scared," Q dead-pans.

"Twenty-nine minutes, Coldwater," Margo reiterates and leaves.

Twenty-eight and some change minutes late, Quentin emerges from isolation to rejoin the world - which seems to consist of Julia and Penny talking on the stairs, Margo with her feet in the lap of Josh Hoberman, and- Eliot- In the kitchen working on something Quentin can’t really see from his bedroom door- and the world smells wonderful. 

“He’s taken up baking” Margo explains, not even bothering to hide the fact that she was watching Quentin watching Eliot like an avid fan, as Quentin slips onto the sofa at her unoccupied side. 

“He’s actually pretty good” Josh carries on “I mean, he’s not making God Cake, but he does pretty well.”

“Well enough that you let him have time in the kitchen without hovering” Margo laughed, poking Josh with her toes sharply in the side. 

“Well enough that I don’t have to hover” Jash agreed. 

“Go talk to him,” Margo urged. 

“What am I supposed to say?”

“I don’t give a fuck. See what he’s making, just talk to him” Margo pressed “Mama needs some alone time with her man” 

Quentin couldn’t help but think that was a lie, but he did as Margo commanded nonetheless. After all, disobeying Margo had a way of coming back to haunt a person, and it wasn’t something that Q could afford. 

Quentin approaches the complicated-looking coffee machine behind the kitchen counter, and he supposes it's all very welcoming, but he's starting to want to retreat anyway. Things are awkward, and no cake could be good enough to make it not, and he's halfway back to the door when a voice stops him.

"Hi," 

"Um," says Quentin, "yeah, I have to go."

"So soon?" Eliot laughs, his mouth quirking up into a smile, and Quentin just shrugs, not quite understanding his tone, and leaves.

~ -- ~ -- ~

Those three words are the only thing that Quentin hears from Eliot in a week, and Q can’t help but feel guilty about it. Margo, Josh, and Eliot had headed back to Fillory later that night, and Q hadn’t been able to get up the courage to say more than a muttered yeah I have to go at him from across the kitchen before he left. In the meantime, he’s been tooling around with a new lesson format, on and off. It's not quite coming together with the way he'd like it to be, and his friends have actually started just, like, jumping out of his way if they pass them in the corridors, which is maybe not a good sign. Alice keeps giving him these looks (when she’s around), the ones that mean _Quentin, do we need to have a talk? I think we need to have a talk._ Which Q has worked out are always the immediate precursors to Alice staging what she calls interventions and Quentin calls interruptions, but Quentin knows he's this close to getting it, from making everything work, and he does everything he can to just get it done.

Which is, of course, when he finds Eliot. Eliot who hadn't gone back to Fillory after all.

This wouldn't be too big of a problem except that Quentin has been working in his room for the whole morning since Julia came and glowered at him from the doorway when he saw him cracking the kinks out of his spine, and his laptop has started telling him to plug it the fuck in. Quentin was honestly going to, any minute, but he's been trying to get to a certain break in rhythm before he gets up, and now the little battery icon has turned red, and he’s out of coffee, and fuck, fuck, fuck. His charger is in the kitchen, and- 

Julia pokes her head around the door, saying, "Q, are you - " but Q is already grabbing his laptop saying, "yeah, I know, eat something" and is on his way out.

He barrels through the door to the kitchen and slams himself down at one of the little stools, fumbling to get everything plugged in, and then he slaps his headphones on and bashes out lesson plans until it's out of his blood, emails it to himself just in case, and then he sits back and breathes out. This is also when he notices Eliot, leaning on his elbows across the counter and looking at him with this half-amused smile.

"What?" says Q, king of social niceties, pushing his headphones down around his neck.

"Hello again," says Eliot.

"Hi."

"You okay?”

"Obviously."

Eliot smiles, which is confusing because usually, people do the exact opposite when Quentin is in a mood and says something like that. 

"Okay," Eliot laughs

"Why are you looking at me?"

"Maybe I like looking at you," says Eliot. "I mean, that, and you came flying in here so fast I thought maybe you were being chased or something."

Quentin doesn't know what to say.

Quentin stares at him. "You know I wasn't actually being chased, right?"

Eliot laughs like Q’s said something really funny. Q isn't really sure what's happening.

"Want something to eat?" Eliot says. "Coffee? I made cookies "

“You don’t have to take care of me Eliot” 

“Yeah, well- we’ve already established the fact that I care about you so- ”

Quentin hesitates and says, "What happened to - You don’t generally care about things"

Eliot shrugs. "With very limited exceptions."

"I don't want to be an exception," Quentin replies.

"Sure you do," says Eliot, easily, and Quentin goes hot all over. "Come on, I make a great latte."

Slowly Q nods and Eliot turns his back to use the ridiculous coffee machine, and Q looks back at his laptop and starts tweaking bits of his lesson here and there, and doesn't look up again until Eliot slides a cup onto the counter next to him.

"Thanks," says Q, remembering.

"And take this," says Eliot, and he presses a biscotti into Q’s hand. Eliot’s fingers are warm, Q notices.

"I didn't - " Q says, but Eliot cuts him off.

"Call it sharing rather than an incentive to get you to eat," he says and touches Q’s elbow before leaving him to it.

Q dunks the biscotti into the coffee. Part of him wants to tell Eliot off for fussing over him, but the biscotti is really, stupidly good.

"Will you be here tomorrow?" he blurts, swallowing a mouthful of crumbs.

Eliot smiles some more. Q has literally never seen Eliot smile this much, not in what feels like a lifetime "And the day after" he says.

"So… I have a lesson to finish planning. But, you’ll be here in the morning?" Q asks. "You know, before class"

"Yeah, I’ll be here," Eliot says. His smile goes all the way into his eyes. He is like a cartoon person, Q thinks. "We can have coffee. Just coffee - don’t worry."

~ -- ~ -- ~

When Q leaves the kitchen after a silent coffee and biscotti, Julia pounces on him the second he walks through his bedroom door.

"So..." she says. "Did you talk?"

"Does it matter?" says Quentin.

Julia shrugs. "You are my reason to breathe, my light, my soul, my air - "

"Jules - "

"- and my best friend, and in your best moments you have terrible people skills, and you certainly aren't at your best - right at this moment. And Eliot doesn’t actually deserve your shitty attitude this time, so I needed to check to see if I need to run damage control."

"Jesus Christ, it wasn't like that."

"Yeah," says Dustin, "but you did sort of storm in there, so you can see my point."

Q cannot really see her point.

“He said he still cares, and I didn’t run immediately out of the room," he says, in the futile hope that this will finally make Julia leave him alone, but, alas, the opposite happens.

Julia screeches, like Quentin had said something truly epic, and not that he had stayed in a room with a sort of ex. "Q, tell me you were well-behaved."

"I'm not a fucking puppy, Jules, it's not like I'm going to start chewing the furniture or anything."

Julia eyes him warily. 

"It was fine," says Quentin, trying to elbow Julia out of the room. "El was fine about it, everything was fine."

Julia does something obscene with her eyebrows and doesn't budge. "El?"

"Yeah, you know, our friend?."

"Our friend?" Julia says, in the same tone that other people might say The Beatles, like Q using his nickname so casually is causing Julia actual physical pain.

"Jules, you have to stop repeating everything I say or I am going to brain you with a book."

"Pffft," says Julia. "I'd like to see you try."

"Go away," says Q "The grown-up has busy work to do."

"The grown-up still has a crush on Eliot," says Julia, and Quentin splutters, completely caught off guard.

"What?"

Julia just raises an eyebrow and Q lets the silence stretch between them. 

Q does not have a crush. 

Still. 

~ -- ~ -- ~

Quentin meets Eliot in the kitchen the next morning at a little before seven. Early by Eliot’s standards, and Quentin knows that their meeting was a sacrifice on Eliot’s part. But they do it all the same, partly because they said they would, and partly because Quentin’s been thinking all night about what Julia said - which is never a good path to go down - and okay, maybe he was a little preoccupied yesterday, and maybe he should have, like, actually talked to Eliot rather than just sitting in the kitchen with his biscotti and coffee.

Still, when Quentin comes into the room Eliot’s there with flour all down his shirt, smiling anyway. How can one person smile so much? Quentin wonders if his face hurts after a while. He also wonders who the hell wears a dress shirt to bake in, but then he's not the world's expert on sartorial choices so he can't really comment.

"Q," Eliot says, brushing the flour off with the flat of his hand, beaming. "Hey."

“Hi,” he replies, settling into one of the open stools, belly up to the counter where Eliot is working. Eliot looks far more awake than he has any right to be. Of the two of them Q is closer to an Early riser - more, he doesn’t sleep a full night on a regular basis and wakes himself up worrying about something more often than not - so Eliot being busy at seven in the morning is really a sight to see. 

“So, I’m working on cinnamon rolls” Eliot explains after pushing a cup of coffee so milky Q wasn’t sure it could actually be called coffee anymore (just how he liked it) in his direction. 

“Is that what all” Q gestured to all of Eliot covered in flour “this is about?”

“Yeah well, it keeps me busy” Eliot replied like it explained everything. And, somehow, Q thought it really did. Eliot was a recovering addict whose body was put through hell by a monster riding it around for nearly a year. Busy, was probably important.

"Looking for a clean slate, is that it?"

Eliot looks at him and lifts an eyebrow.

"I'm kidding," Q continues

"I know," says Eliot. And there’s that smile again.

There's a brief pause and then Eliot turns back from turning on the coffee machine and says, "So, tell me how classes are going."

"What?" says Quentin.

"You looked pretty busy yesterday," Eliot elaborates.

"Oh, yeah," says Quentin, because, after all, he does sort of, maybe, owe Eliot an explanation for that one. "Um, I’m working on finding that secret method of keeping my class awake for the entirety of a lecture."

"Obviously," says Eliot replies, like maybe it wasn't, and also a little like his mocking tone from the day before. Quentin has gotten used to people just agreeing with him about everything lately, so it takes him a second to react. And, when he does, it’s with a baffled snort of a laugh. 

“What are we doing Eliot?”

“You’re having coffee, and I’m making cinnamon rolls”

“Do we do that now?”

“We are doing that,” Eliot replies like he isn’t turning Quentin’s life upside down. Then he adds those three words. Those three words that change everything, and yet nothing at all. “Don’t overthink it” 

And Quentin smiles around the lip of his coffee cup and decides to pretend everything will be alright. It’s just Eliot, he’s just Quentin, and nothing has to happen. 

~ -- ~ -- ~

It becomes a sort of routine after that, Quentin slumping into the kitchen half-asleep before work, or between hours of work if he hasn't slept at all, and Eliot always smiling brightly at him like he's the second coming, making Quentin blush.

It's usually quiet in the apartment when Quentin wakes in the morning, and when he can't face going to teach without more caffeine in his system, he sits at one of the stools near the counter and listens to Eliot moving around in the kitchen. He hums songs to himself while he stirs batter, or rolls out dough for ginger cookies, or chops up blocks of whatever he’s using in a breakfast omelet, and Q leans his head forward against the counter, closes his eyes and thinks of tuts and looping fingers in front of him to the same tune. He catches himself humming them at work, sometimes, and catches Margo raising an eyebrow at Josh when she passes, both of them looking at him when he comes home at the end of the day like he’s an animal in the zoo.

One morning, Eliot is rolling around chocolate truffles in chocolate sprinkles, the next he's coaxing what looks like individual pineapple upside-down cakes out of their little plastic molds, the next he's spooning dulce de leche over plain, yellow cake cupcakes. He looks up and catches Quentin’s eye, and tells him about Josh letting him help in the kitchen sometimes during the hot, slow Fillorian summer, or teaching him dessert recipes when he was too stressed to think straight. He says their names, slipping easily into French, and Q has to drag his eyes away from Eliot’s mouth shaping the words, his fingers slipping on the keys of his phone, checking his email in a nervous tic.

In return, Q tells him about the trials and tribulations of sharing a suite with Julia and James, and the time they drew a mustache on Julia when she fell asleep on the sofa and it turned out to be a really permanent marker and Julia had had to go to the student health center to see if they could, like, bleach it off or something, and how James learned all the cheats to Mario Kart, and Quentin watches Eliot lick frosting off his fingers, checking the taste. They fall into conversation and silence by turn, equally companionable, and Q starts to resent the presence of their other friends when Eliot turns his attention full-beam onto them, and it's the first time Q’s felt like this like he might want someone to want him rather than recognize what he can do.

Sometimes he watches Eliot piping frosting onto cupcakes or decorating sugar cookies with colored icing, watches his long fingers, the way he frowns to concentrate, licks his lips when there's a complicated pattern to ice. It is basically pornography, and Q sometimes has to tear his eyes away and think about Dean Fogg or what little he retained from his lesson plans until his body stops embarrassing him and it's safe to stand up.

It turns out to be sort of easy, being around Eliot again, comfortable without Q really having to make an effort, and he's the first person outside of Julia that Quentin can just talk to, because whenever Q says something obsessive or overly nerdy, or overly sad, Eliot just laughs or carries on the conversation like he actually cares, and Q shivers all down his spine. It's just Quentin’s luck that when he finally finds someone he can be completely at ease around, They're Eliot. Someone he wants so much that he just can't do it, can't unwind the way he thinks he could do if a lifetime hadn't passed between them. Or if Eliot would just stop sending him those little crooked smiles.

He jerks off one night in the shower, helplessly, thinking about big hazel eyes and Eliot on his knees, his mouth around Quentin’s cock, and then about Eliot on his back, fingers gripping white and tight in Quentin’s sheets, wet mouth open, moaning broken English, and comes so hard he has to lean his forehead against the slick tile wall and try to catch his breath while his legs stop shaking.

He can't look Eliot in the eye the next morning, but it's really, really worth it.

At some point, and despite Quentin’s best efforts to keep things quiet, Julia finds out that he's spending mornings with Eliot ( who is, in turn, staying on Earth often without Margo) and doesn't so much insist on tagging along as she does just pop up at the kitchen table at just the time that Quentin does that morning.

"What?" she says, all fake wide-eyed innocence, when Quentin glares at her. It's been a week or so of only catching a few hours of sleep here and there, grading papers, and he is not quite conscious enough to make conversation yet. "I’m just here for cereal, okay?"

Except, obviously, she has a gigantic ulterior motive, which manifests spectacularly clearly when Eliot comes into the room and Julia all but trips over her own feet saying good morning.

"This is actually happening. You’re still here," she says. "I mean, I knew you were here, but - you're here, here."

"I think you'll find rumors of my existence have been greatly exaggerated," says Eliot, gamely, and grins at Quentin, who is slumped in one of the chairs and pretending none of this is happening. It's too early for this shit. "Coffee, Q?"

Quentin nods as vigorously as he can at seven in the morning.

"Two shots or one?"

"Seven," says Quentin, childishly. "Julia’s face is hurting my eyes."

"I am offended," says Julia, who is obviously not. She turns back to Eliot. "I'm just here for the cereal."

"I gathered," says Eliot, still grinning. "Can I get you a bowl?."

He does something fiddly with the coffee machine, and then there's a ping from the stove.

"Excuse me," he says. "That'll be the brownies."

He disappears back behind the island and to the ovens, and Julia turns to Quentin, actually agog, which is something to behold. Julia has, like, a plasticine face. She makes the most ludicrous expressions of anyone Quentin knows.

"Okay," she says. "I know why a normal person would wake up early for this. Because eating Eliot’s cake is like eating rainbows, but you are abnormal and shun deliciousness when it is dangled in front of your face, so I knew that wasn't it - but now I totally get why you make time for this."

"For the quality of the coffee?"

“Dude. Seriously."

Quentin opens his eyes and squints at Julia, unimpressed.

"Seriously," Julia reiterates.

Quentin closes his eyes again.

"Wait till I tell Penny that you've been having hot morning pastries made with love," Julia continues, unabashed. "He'll be so jealous."

"Who'll be so jealous?" asks Eliot, coming back out of the kitchen carrying a tray of brownies. Quentin slumps further down in his chair and tries to think of ways that, if this were only a virtual reality, he could get the earth to swallow him up, but is distracted halfway through by the silence coming from Julia’s side of the table.

He clicks his fingers in front of Julia’s face, but she’s fixed on the brownies the way she used to stare at Mario Kart when James was in the lead by split seconds, and shaving off a corner could get Julia a win.

"Oh my god," says Julia. "Is it too early for brownies? It's not too early for brownies, right? It can never be too early for brownies, right? Right, Quentin? Right?"

"By all means, ingest more sugar, that will help," Q grumbles, and hears Eliot laugh from behind the counter.

"Here," says Eliot, coming over with Quentin’s coffee. He squeezes his shoulder when he sets the cup down on the table, standing just behind Quentin’s chair. Q lets himself lean his cheek against Eliot’s long fingers just this once, because he's tired, and because Eliot touched him first, so it must be okay.

Julia is looking at him oddly across the table, and Quentin is definitely too tired to care exactly what that expression is, but there's something more subtle than Julia’s usual grin going on. Whatever. Quentin clasps his hand around the coffee cup and takes a grateful sip.

"Careful," Eliot warns like he does every morning and Q never listens. He says, "It's hot," at exactly the same time as Q burns his tongue and winces, and Q feels Eliot laugh.

“So you and Q are talking?” 

Quentin can't look up at Eliot or he doesn't know what he'll do. Something inadvisable, probably. It's not fair that Eliot should look so put-together so early in the morning. Quentin needs caffeine in order to wake up properly, and he is definitely not awake enough for Julia’s blatant snooping, and also Eliot’s hand is still on Quentin’s shoulder, and, just, what the hell.

Julia kicks Q under the table and winks. "Don't say I never do you any favors."

Quentin turns exceptionally, unpreventably, red, but Eliot just laughs 

"We’re talking…," Quentin says, peeking up at Eliot with a half-smile. A smile Eliot returns with this soft little smile that he can’t describe in words, but that’s doing crazy things to his stomach. Quentin wants to kiss him so fucking much he doesn't know what to do about it, so he just fidgets and eventually Eliot turns back to Julia, and Q, well… Q just tries to lose himself in his coffee while Jula tells Eliot how she’s taking him to work today and gesticulates wildly about something over her bowl of cereal.

On the way to work, Julia keeps up a steady stream of hyperbole about Eliot’s face and Eliot’s eyes and Eliot’s smile. Just before they go inside, Q says, "Jesus, Julia, if you like the guy so much, just ask him out already."

"Don't be jealous, Q, it's not attractive."

"Fuck off," Q says, without any real heat to it.

Julia stops walking and catches hold of Quentin’s arm. Q turns to her, surprised. Despite Julia being Julia, an emotional octopus in human form.

"Dude," Julia says, and she's suddenly serious. "Seriously though, I mean - he's clearly - you're clearly - if you asked him - "

Quentin pulls his arm away and changes the subject before Julia can get a full sentence out. "I am never letting you have any sugar ever again," he says

Julia gasps, switching moods to match Quentin instantly, turning a circle on her heel with her hands clasped over her heart, hamming it up for all she's worth. "Et tu, Brutus," she cries. "What happened to our sugary morning love?"

"Your face happened," Quentin says, and Julia pretends to pout.

Later, Quentin texts Eliot:

"Sorry about Julia, she's special."

And Eliot replies:

"She's just trying to be nice." And quickly "I liked seeing you blush."

Quentin puts his phone in his pocket and tries not to smile too stupidly down at his notes as class begins.


	2. If all your gravity did not hit me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliot makes a confession, Josh gives Eliot a new hobby, and Eliot forgets to sleep.

**Eliot’s Point of View**

It wasn’t so much an act of bravery as an act of desperation on Eliot’s part that made him tell Quentin Coldwater that he loved him. 

~ -- ~ -- ~

They pulled Quentin from the Mirror World while Eliot was still out of it with Lipson elbow deep in his guts. But, with magic flooding back into the so-called Real World, his ice ax caused, gaping hole of a wound was no problem for Lipson who handed him over to the B team as quickly as she could while she focused on Quentin. Quentin who was half shattered by rebounded magic. It turns out rebuilding and reshaping a half shattered body was a little more complicated than your garden variety gut wound. Really, Eliot couldn’t balm her for bailing on him, and if he were anyone else, he probably would have thanked her for it. But, as it was, he was himself, and thank you was not the first thing on his mind when he woke up.

Quentin had been in recovery for about a week the first time that Eliot had been allowed out of his own bed in the Infirmary to see him. Alice and Julia had been glued to Quentin’s side (much the same as Margo had been glued to his) since Lipson had rolled out a mended but unconscious Q and told them that the best they could do now was wait and see. Eliot had made his peace with that. After all, it wasn’t like he could blame them. Quentin hadn’t woken up yet, and as much as he hated it, Eliot couldn’t stop thinking about the time with the centaurs. He hoped for a similar outcome, as he sat by his best friend’s side. He wanted to take his hand (the one not in bandages) in his, but it was currently occupied by Alice, who he had gathered that Quentin had gotten back together with days before they had gone to the seam. It was confusing, to say the least. From what Eliot remembered they were still pretty pissed at Alice for destroying the keys to all magic and she had been arrested by the Library. 

Well, it was the last thing he could remember clearly at least. There were all of these half-memories that kept surfacing at the worst possible moment, but he didn’t really have the time or energy to deal with it. No matter how much asking Margo had done. But then, Quentin had always been a mess over Alice, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t had his shot and completely wasted it. So, instead, he sat quietly beside Alice and waited.

And waited...

And waited.

Until Margo started chomping at the bit to get back to Fillory. She had left Hoberman after telling him she loved him (actually a lot more shocking than Q’s act of self-sacrifice) and hadn’t been back on her throne since leaving Fen in her place as High King (slightly, and only slightly, less shocking than being in love with Josh). Honestly, Eliot couldn’t blame her. Fillory had saved his life and become hers. If it weren’t Quentin in that hospital bed, he would already be gone.

But it is Quentin.

Still, Margo gave him a day now that he was cleared to walk around -- with the promise that they would come back as soon as possible -- before she left for Fillory, promising to drag him through the clock kicking and screaming if she had to (something he was bound and determined not to let happen) Eliot couldn’t help but think that she was being rather generous.

So, when Quentin’s eyes fluttered open a few hours after Eliot had begun his bedside vigil, and after Alice had thrown herself over Quentin’s body like a shield, he couldn’t help but think of it as some sort of sign.

Q’s eyes met his over Alice’s shoulder.

Quentin smiled and Eliot smiled back while he sobbed openly, and was finally able to take Quentin’s hand in his own. Then, words were falling from his lips faster than he could manage to stop them. A stream of confession his heart was crafting beyond what his mouth was actually capable of containing.

And Quentin had looked at Alice.

~ -- ~ -- ~

They had been back to Earth a few times since Quentin had woken up, but never for long. There was enough drama to keep them busy in Fillory, particularly with a Dark King to win over and eventually overthrow, and a weird love triangle brewing between Margo, Josh, and somehow predictably, Eliot’s ex-wife. Honestly, it was enough to keep him on his toes. He wasn’t actively avoiding long periods on Earth so that he didn’t have to deal with the fallout of his last real conversation with Quentin. Absolutely not.

He had enough to deal with. Which was where the most unexpected resolution had come up in the form of Josh Hoberman who, unlike his better half (if she was still calling herself that at the moment, complicated was only the beginning there) who had no problem with drinking and Eliot’s usual avoidance techniques, thought that being productive in some way was the best way to deal with stress.

Enter - cooking lessons with Josh- something that Eliot had thought would be ridiculous, but that had ended up being really pretty nice at the end of all things. The monster had left his body itching and scratching for any available substances, and while alcohol and the blast of opium in Fillory’s air took the edge off, there was something consistently nice about making something with his own two hands that he hadn’t known he was missing. Baking, when he couldn’t think straight, or when the world felt too overwhelming, became a sort of escape for Eliot. Unexpectedly freeing.

And it was a hobby that carried over well to the Loft while on Earth, where being in control was a far-flung dream. Josh’s nephew has his Bar Mitzvah and the guy dropped everything for his family (something Eliot couldn’t really understand, but also kind of admired)which meant the trio that he, Josh, and Margo had become, were about to find themselves on Earth for a while.

Eliot planned to use his new hobby extensively. In fact, he headed straight to the kitchen as soon as they arrived. He was about to feel awkward as hell, so he might as well DO something with his time.

Biscotti. He could do biscotti. There had to be a recipe online. Maybe there was even a video of Ina Garten or Giada De Laurentis so that he didn’t have to bug Josh. They had to be easy enough to make, and it seemed like, these days, no one was around enough for a proper meal. That was something anyone could snag on their way out the door with a cup of coffee. Something innocuous, and yet enough work to provide a much-needed distraction. Which, if the way that Julia was looking at him was any indicator, he certainly would need.

He knew that Margo was about to push him to talk to Quentin, and if he knew Quentin’s best friend at all, Julia was about to do the same to him. So, he did what he did best. He avoided it. He rolled up his sleeves and straight-up pretended nothing unusual or awkward was happening. He gathered flour, sugar, and almond extract from the cupboards and hummed to himself to block out everything else around him until Quentin stood in the doorway.

"Hi," he mutters, dusting a little of the flour off of his hands with a clap and a flick of his wrists.

"Um," says Quentin, "yeah, I have to go."

"So soon?" Eliot laughs, his mouth quirking up into a smile, because what else is he supposed to do? But, at that moment - after seeing Quentin all sunken-eyed, sharp cheekboned, and lank-haired - Eliot knows he’ll be on Earth for a while. Things with Quentin might be awkward, but Eliot wasn’t about to let him keep walking down whatever road had gotten him to this point. Bring on the awkward. He just hoped Kady had enough flour in the apartment to keep him going.

~ -- ~ -- ~

Margo leaves for Fillory the next morning leaving Josh and Eliot behind. But, she does leave Eliot with some parting words of wisdom in true Margo style.

“Talk to him Eliot,” Margo said, looking up at Eliot as she wrapped his arms around his middle and he wrapped his arms around her in return. Some things never changed.

“I’m going to be in an apartment with him for however long it takes to get him looking, you know, not dead. I’m sure that will include talking.” Eliot replied, kissing Margo’s forehead.

“Jesus Christ Eliot, you know what I mean. Talk to him” She said, pulling back from him enough to meet his eye.

“Bambi…”

“Don’t Bambi me about this.” She scolded. “You don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine. I’ll pretend to understand, but you need to talk to someone El. Anyone. Why not Quentin? He seems fucked up enough to relate to whatever it is you’re not telling me”

And, maybe she had a point. Maybe Eliot was going to ignore that point, but Margo had it nonetheless. This is how Eliot finds himself trying to make a place for himself in Kady’s swanky ass apartment. Quentin doesn’t even leave his room (at least, not at normal human hours) and Eliot starts to think that maybe he made the wrong decision. Maybe he should have gone back with Margo instead of waiting for a moment that would never arrive.

One week.

It takes one week for Eliot to run into Quentin, or really for Quentin to run into him. Or, into the kitchen where Eliot had set up shop. He comes flying into the room like he’s being chased by a swarm of bees and slams himself down at the counter across from him. No hello, no nothing. And, rather than getting pissed off about it, Eliot can’t help but smile. He leans across the counter on his elbows and can’t help the amused half smile that flits over his face. It’s not his fault that even with unwashed hair and bags under his eyes, that Quentin looks incredibly good.

"What?" says Q, pushing his headphones down around his neck.

"Hello again," says Eliot.

"Hi."

"You okay?”

"Obviously."

Eliot smiles, a little wider. Quentin has this deer in the headlights look on his face that would have earned him the nickname Bambi if that title hadn’t been long given away.  
"Okay," Eliot laughs

"Why are you looking at me?"

"Maybe I like looking at you," says Eliot, because lying to Quentin, well… it didn’t really seem like an option. Not after everything, but then why not have a little fun with the truth. "I mean, that, and you came flying in here so fast I thought maybe you were being chased or something."

Eliot can tell by the little furrow in his brow that Quentin has absolutely no idea what to say next. So there they are, caught in a staring match that Eliot hadn’t really meant to start. Just looking at each other until Quentin fidgets and adds.

"You know I wasn't actually being chased, right?"

Eliot laughs because he can’t help it. Leave it to the king of social niceties to keep a conversation going and of course, something like that was going to be the first thing out of his mouth. It was adorable in a way that made absolutely no sense, and Eliot - well, Eliot couldn’t help feeling a little lighter because of it. They were talking. Maybe not in the way that Bambi had wanted, but in a way. No one jumps feet first into possession-based trauma and love confessions right off the bat, after all. No. Coffee, coffee, and feeding Quentin enough to make him look less malnourished. He could do that.

"Want something to eat?" Eliot says. "Coffee? I made cookies "

“You don’t have to take care of me Eliot”

“Yeah, well- we’ve already established the fact that I care about you so- ”

Quentin hesitates and says, "What happened to - You don’t generally care about things"

Eliot shrugs. "With very limited exceptions."

"I don't want to be an exception," Quentin replies

And if there’s anything that Eliot knows about the uncertain way that Quentin smiles at him, and the way he would go easily into hugs, he knows this. "Sure you do," he says "Come on, I make a great latte."

Eliot thanks his lucky stars for his turn as a Starbucks barista during Undergrad that makes navigating the monstrosity of a coffee machine in the loft’s kitchen a snap. Eliot gets Quentin a late and just watches him for a moment before sliding a biscotti across the counter to him as well. Someone needed to get Q to eat. Even if it was just, week old biscotti.

And that’s how it begins. Eliot somehow agrees to meet up with Quentin in the mornings before he leaves for Brakebills, and then actually does it. It would be a sacrifice if it were for anyone else, but for Quentin? Well, Eliot almost enjoys it. Does enjoy the time spent sitting across from the man he loves having small talk about nothing and everything. In fact, it becomes the highlight of his day. He makes cinnamon rolls, ginger snaps, and sometimes even makes breakfast omelets and toaster pastries. Anything to keep his hands busy because recently his hands have been wanting to tangle themselves in Quentin’s hair, drag him over the counter, and to crush their mouths together until they ran out of air.

But, alas, some things were just not to be.

Quentin was still skittish. Like a baby bird just flung out of the nest and forced to fly. Like the boy who had stumbled out of the woods and onto the grass sea in front of the Brakebills sign and looked up at him like he was the fucking Ghost of Christmas Past. So instead Eliot keeps himself busy, and he avoids thinking about Quentin’s mouth, or his hands, or the warmth of his compact little body next to his, still sleep warm and drowsy as he tucks into his first cup of coffee for the day.

He makes things that his friends will enjoy.

But honestly, he just makes a distraction.

It’s been two weeks since he said goodbye to Margo and Eliot barely sleeps, paranoid that he's missing something, that something is wrong. He checks and rechecks his mirror, enchanted for emergencies, writes, and rewrites letters, sends bunny after bunny, barely sleeping. Eliot knows he was worse when he was younger and Magic was new, but he can't stop it, eyes growing gritty from the lack of rest, he starts snapping at anyone he runs into, which is going to come back to haunt him when this is done. He's missing something, he knows he is. He just - he can't see it.

Friday rolls around, and Eliot is exhausted, dropping into breakfast on auto-pilot rather than purposefully and ready to go. His hair falling in his eyes, shirt misbuttoned. But after two hours of fitful sleep, waking in a sweat, convinced he's still in the Happy Place, and he’s been dreaming all of this. He shuffles down in his chair, leans his head back, closes his eyes and listens to the sound of the coffee machine, and waits for Quentin.

He jerks abruptly awake sometime later to Quentin’s hand on his shoulder and doesn't know what day it is or how long he's been out.

"What," he says, heart pounding in his ears, and then he rubs his eyes and actually wakes up a bit more, takes in his surroundings. "What's the time?"

"Nine," Quentin says, and Eliot has been asleep for two hours, fuck. He's prickling with embarrassment and the remnants of the adrenaline, knows he sleeps open-mouthed and unguarded, and apparently, now he sleeps in public, and if his breath smells like it tastes then he really doesn't want to know. But Quentin’s fingers tighten slightly around his shoulder. "Are you okay?"  
"I'm sorry," snaps Eliot, getting to his feet, but he genuinely hasn't slept properly for going on three days and he's dizzy, and he grabs the back of his chair. Quentin grabs his elbow to steady him, and Eliot lets him until his head has cleared enough that he can pull away.

Quentin watches him shuffle behind the counter and start searching for coffee beans.

"El," he says, and he sounds sort of worried, which is ridiculous, because why would he be worried about Eliot? "El, sit down, okay, when was the last time you ate?"

"But you’re late," Eliot says, shortly, "I shouldn't have fallen to sleep, I need to - " He stops, wide-eyed because Quentin has caught hold of his hand. Eliot has poor circulation; Quentin’s hands are warm enough that it makes him notices how cold he was before.

"Just," says Quentin, and he's giving Eliot this look he doesn't understand, "just, wait a second, okay?"

Quentin still has hold of Eliot’s hand, and Eliot nods, dumbly, curling his fingers against Quentin’s palm.

Quentin nods back, pleased, and disappears into the kitchen proper. Eliot runs his thumb over the backs of his fingers where his skin is still warm from Quentin’s touch. He's tired.

Quentin reappears with a brown paper lunch bag like he's about to send Eliot off to school. Eliot makes a face that hopefully expresses this sentiment, but Quentin just puts the little bag in his hands and looks up at him with those big brown eyes... He pats Eliot’s shoulders.

"There," he says. "Now you won't starve."

"I wouldn't have starved," says Eliot, disconcerted. “I can make my own food. I’m not the one late for class”

Quentin says fondly, "Sugar is not a food group, El. But, you’re right? I am late" before going up on his toes and kissing Eliot’s cheek softly. “Kinda worth it.” he adds before he heads for the door

Eliot blinks after him feeling his jaw go slack.

He needs to talk to Margo.


	3. Oh Don't You See?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin gets advice, Julia gets a cookie, and discussions are had.

**Quentin’s Point of View**

Quentin has no idea how this normally happens, because, like, he's spent the whole day thinking about Eliot’s mouth and the curve of Eliot’s smile against his ear and, well, just Eliot in general, in between class sessions, and now he's here and, just - okay, so, Quentin refuses to believe that the rest of the world spend their time just sort of awkwardly edging around the fact that they might have a soulmate out there who, might still be in love with them, and they might have fucked up their shot with them because- well, Eliot hasn’t called. 

He hasn’t texted

He hasn’t sent a fucking bunny. 

And kissing someone, even on the cheek, it’s a sign that like - you’re okay with them, at the very least. And Quentin couldn’t help but think that was worth saying something about. His first instinct is to call Julia, but… Julia was already too invested. He needed someone who could be objective. Someone who knows him well enough to know if he’s fucking up a good thing. 

So, he calls Alice

~ -- ~ -- ~

Instead of going home that night, Quentin meets Alice for drinks at a hedge bar not too far from the apartment. Alice says she'll get the drinks and Quentin tries to insist on paying, because _chivalry_ , and because he sort of thinks he owes her, but he ends up giving her a mock-stern look and he pretends to relent before shoving a couple of dollars in Alice’s coat pocket when she goes up to the bar and isn't looking.

He half expects Alice to get some girly drink, something pink with sugar around the rim of the glass because Alice had never been a hard drink sort of girl. And, in a way, he’s right about that. But, just the same, he never really knew what to expect with Alice. She comes back from the bar with two bottles of beer, and Q is pleasantly surprised.

"Cheers," Alice says, and they clink the tops of the bottles together and drink. “I would have gotten wine but this doesn’t really feel like the place for it” 

It isn’t the first time that they’ve seen each other since what Julia is has taken to calling the Great Qualice Breakup (both due to its epicness- her words, not Quentin’s- and the fact that it sounds like The Great British Bakeoff which she and Quentin had been binge-watching at the time). But it was the first time that they were meeting on somewhat equal footing. No one was dying, no one was making life-altering decisions about running a former evil empire. They were just… well, he supposed you could call them friends. Friends who knew each other entirely too well, maybe. And, maybe it was awkward to remain friends with someone you had been at least a little in love with, but if Quentin was never going to be friends with women he had been in love with, Kady would be his only female friend. And, Penny and Josh would be his only male friends. And, okay - maybe the real problem was that Quentin needed to stop falling in love with his friends. 

Over the course of the evening, Alice tells him about the Library, and the reforms she’s putting in place as the new head librarian. She refuses to tell him about the actual inner workings of the library, and when he brings up Eliot, she smiles around the lip of her beer and shrugs. 

“Am I supposed to be shocked?” Alice laughs setting her beer down. 

“I don’t really know what you’re supposed to be. But I needed someone to talk to.”

“And you thought that, talking to your ex about how much you want someone else, was a good idea?”

Quentin shrugs in reply. There weren’t really words enough to make a good argument.

“Jesus Christ, Q” she snickered again tracing the label on her bottle with her fingernail.

“I know, I know, okay? But I can’t take this to Julia. She’s - she means well, but ever since” he flexes the hand that had been remade after the Mirror World, scars rising as his muscles moved “She’s been bound and determined to make sure I’m happy. At any and all costs. If she thinks Eliot is it, she’s gonna be hell-bent on making sure that things - I don’t know - progress” 

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“I don’t know Alice, it’s a thing” Q sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment, and then pushing his hair back behind his ears. 

“You asked me here, Quentin. Don’t get frustrated when things get awkward. Things are going to be awkward for a while. But - you’re right.” She reached out and covered his hand with hers, still the nervousness there. “I’m here for you”

Quentin smiled helplessly at her. Sometimes he hated himself for the fact that he couldn’t still be in love with Alice Quinn. He can’t help but think how nice his life would have been. He thinks about her and about what could have been. What should have been easy for them - and it takes him a couple of minutes to remember - oh yeah, there was nothing about them that was easy. 

Still. Someone was going to be lucky enough to deserve her someday. He hopes they’re still the kind of friends that he could give a shovel talk to whoever answered the call. 

“And you need to hear this” she carried on. “Have you ever thought about, you know, talking to him?” 

Quentin looks at Alice with a look that clearly says _‘yeah because it’s just that easy’._

“You know, not everything is as complicated as you like to make it. I swear. Sometimes things work out. Just because we didn’t doesn’t mean that you’re doomed to never be in a successful relationship ever again. And sometimes, hear me out, just sometimes - you deserve that makes you happy”

“And we weren’t happy?”

“We were… complicated. I think we could make each other happy, but we could make each other crazy too. Anyway, it’s not like you know how to give up on things you care about. So, the real question is, is this something you want? And, not just something you feel like you’re supposed to want. That was a big part of our problem Quentin. We both fell in love with the idea of someone. With the idea of what we could be, or we should be. But if you love Eliot, the way I think you always have, you don’t just love the idea of him” 

“I don’t even know if I know what love is anymore Alice.”

“Well, that’s bullshit. But, sure… we’ll go with that” She shrugged 

“When did you get so sarcastic?”

“We broke up Q. I don’t have to be careful with you. Besides, if you didn’t want a little tough love, you would have gone to Julia. “

“You don’t think Julia gives me tough love?” Q laughed

“I think Julia can. But not about this. And you need to hear it” Alice replied, with no hint of a laugh in her voice. Which sobered Quentin up rather quickly.

“Hear what exactly?” He asked. 

“That we weren’t going to work. And it’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault.” She did smile then, as she added “You’re a dramatically better friend than a boyfriend anyway.” 

“Dramatically?” Quentin asks, laughing. 

Alice ignores him. “…you love him, don’t you?” she asks, reaching out and threading her fingers through his hair and untangling it. Gentle. Quentin sighs and takes advantage of the petting for a while before he lifts his head again to make a face at her.  
“I think so,” he says.   
“He’s in love with you,” she says. “I couldn’t be what you needed. That doesn’t mean no one can be. Let Eliot in. I think it’ll be worth it. For both of you”

Quentin orders another round

~ -- ~ -- ~

Quentin doesn't know what's supposed to happen now. He’s less than useless in the morning. He jerks awake at, like, six, and he is so not a morning person unless he's seeing it from the perspective of having been up all night that it takes him a few bleary minutes of staring accusatorially at the blinking green numbers on his clock before they actually tell him anything. His hangover at least does him the decency of letting him stagger into his bathroom before he pukes everywhere, which is nice.

He spends half an hour propping up the tiles on the bathroom wall, unwilling to tempt fate by getting up and leaving, and then goes back to bed with a pillow over his face. When he wakes up again, his clock is telling him it's ten-fifteen, which is news he receives with much less animosity and also less nausea, which is even better. It’s Saturday. He deserves it.

He showers and drinks, like, four cups of coffee and finds some clothes in his wardrobe that have both been washed recently and also put away properly from the laundry, and heads out to face the day.

Since college, Quentin has had this thing where, however bad his hangover pretends to be in the morning when it's like a team of small, angry dwarves have taken up residence in his skull and vented Nordic, ax-swinging rage on his gray matter when he's fit enough to shower and force down some inhumanely strong coffee, it starts to wane. He has fond, fond memories of that first Brakebills summer, everyone else collapsed and useless over various items of living-room furniture while he was studying. Able to do enough work to make everyone wide-eyed when they eventually came down and/or recovered, respectively. This is different, though. Now he has less fond and more excruciating memories of being like "hurr you like ponies" and also a memory that twinges something in his stomach and makes his throat hurt, saying he loved Eliot and the feel of Alice’s fingers in his hair.  
He settles in the golden throne of a chair and debates going to find Eliot when Julia appears. She shoves a plate under his nose.

"Cookie?" she asks. "They're not warm anymore, but they're still good."

Quentin shakes his head, not looking, and tries to focus on being a human being.

"Your loss," Julia shrugs and chews her way through at least two more before Quentin sighs, and gives up, and looks up at her properly.

"What did you do before Eliot?" Julia wonders. Her mouth is full. Q can see bits of cookie rolling around inside it.

"Is this going to be important, or is this just you trying to get me to eat something?"

Julia shrugs again. "Go about your business," she says. "I'm on a break. A cookie break. A delicious, novelty shaped, sugar cookie break."

Q starts to get a niggling feeling of worry in the back of his mind.

"Novelty-shaped?" he echoes.

Julia doesn't seem to be paying attention.

"Yeah, Q, you wouldn't happen to know why the cookies are shaped like peaches and plums today, would you?" she asks, off-hand, like she's not expecting an answer - but then she probably starts expecting one really fast when Q freezes up.

"What?" says Quentin, because: _what?_

Julia puts the plate of cookies carefully to one side and then gets very close to Quentin’s face. Quentin would be more bothered about this if he wasn't too busy being bothered about the fact that he knows what peaches and plums mean and Eliot has baked cookies and presumably basically everyone in the apartment has eaten them.

"You _do_ know!" Julia crows, gleefully triumphant. "Oh my god, Q, tell me everything."

"No," Q says, trying to shrug her off and get to his laptop. "No, I don't know. Just enjoy your baked goods and leave me alone."

Julia refuses to be shrugged off. "Gossip! Everything! Tell me right now, Quentin Coldwater, I shared a suite with you, we have no secrets."

Q thinks of Julia’s disturbing drunken habit of walking around half-dressed. "Maybe there should be more secrets," he says, still trying to elbow Julia out of the way. "More secrets and also more clothing."

"I bet you wouldn’t say that to Eliot," Julia says, and Q makes a wordless noise of horrified protest and glances up to see Julia’s face undergo a truly remarkable expression of delight and victory.

"I knew it!" she cries and whips out her phone.

"What the hell are you doing?" Q says, furious, grabbing for it, but Julia just lifts the phone over her head and by the time Quentin has stood up from his chair and snatched it out of her hands, she’s already pressed send.

Julia lets him flounder apoplectically for another few seconds before he says, "Dude, chill, I just texted Penny."

Q sinks back down into his chair. While he would much rather this conversation stopped right here, involved no other people, and also was erased from both of their minds, he guesses that Julia only texting Penny about it is about as close to that scenario as the real world will allow.

Penny arrives a couple of minutes later.

"Q is Eliot’s peach, come quick," he reads, looking faintly aghast and. "Can someone please explain this to me? And can that someone please not be Coldwater?"

Quentin actually chokes. Sadly, this gives Julia the opportunity to leap in front of Penny and brandish the plate of cookies at him. She shakes the box so all the little cookie fruits slide about, and Q squeezes his eyes shut and tries to imagine this isn’t happening.

Penny makes a noise that is the Patronus of everything going on in Q’s head right now. When Q opens his eyes, Penny has shoved his way past Julia and is rubbing his temples like he's staving off a migraine. He leans against the sofa, and asks, "Fine. Coldwater? Can you - say some words, please?"

Q starts with, "It’s just a thing," which may or may not be true, but either way, it's not how he really wanted to open this whole thing.

Julia looks so incredibly glad to be hearing this conversation that it makes Penny’s pained expression look even more agonized by contrast.

Q feels slightly affronted. "It's not like it’s anything bad," he says. "It’s just a thing from the quest. No big deal."

Julia shoves her fist in her mouth.

Penny ignores this. "I didn't say it was," he says “And that’s not the point”

Q is busy, and his mouth still tastes like morning breath and too much coffee, and he has better things to be doing with his time than this. "What is the point?"

"Julia’s not going to stop until you tell her"

Q is admittedly not the most in tune with his emotions, but right now he actually has no fucking idea what his feelings are doing, wobbling between cautious delight and jangling despair. "It was just a thing," he repeats. 

Julia just blinks at him owlishly and waits. Which - is how he ends up telling Julia, and consequently Penny, about The Mosaic.

Penny puts a hand on his shoulder once he falls silent again. "If it's any consolation," he says. "The cookies are really fucking good."

"Seriously," says Julia. "They really are. Your husband’s great, I approve."

"He's not my husband, he’s not even my boyfriend," Quentin mutters, into his hands.

Julia continues, ignoring him, "Are you going to bring him home to meet the family? And by "home" I mean "keep him here" and by "the family" I mean me. And by "meet" I mean "dispense baked goods on command"."

"Shut up," Q groans. "Please shut up."

Someone peels his hands away from his face, and when he looks up to glare, it's Penny, pressing a cookie into his hand. The shine of the icing mocks him. Quentin doesn't know how to feel about any of this, other than really, really wanting another cup of coffee and to be left alone forever, or for at least the foreseeable future.

Penny, who Quentin is learning he should appreciate more, starts to steer Julia towards the door. "We'll leave you with your thoughts," he says, and Julia starts to protest but Penny gives her a look or something, and she shuts up.

Julia turns around before Penny closes the door. "Q," she says, in an entirely different tone of voice that makes Q instantly suspicious, "do you love Eliot?"

Q doesn't say anything, thinking about Eliot’s crooked, warm smile, and apparently, this shows on his face, because Julia smiles back at him, softly.

Q only manages to resist the urge to put his head on his hands because he doesn't want to give Julia the satisfaction

~ -- ~ -- ~

Eliot is in the kitchen when Q gets up later. He’s drying dishes by the sink, his shirt sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Q doesn't know what he's supposed to open within situations like this. It's not like he’s never hooked up with a guy before - it's not even like he’s never hooked up with Eliot before - but he's definitely never dated one before.

Okay, yeah, and another thing: would they even be dating, or was there just going to be a relationship?

Q cannot think the word date anymore.

He hesitates for long enough that Eliot looks up and catches sight of him, and immediately breaks into a smile. There is no-one who looks as consistently happy to see Q as Eliot does. It makes Q fidget, unaccustomed to it.

Eliot comes through into the kitchen proper, slinging the dishcloth over his shoulder, and it reminds Q so strongly of the first time he saw him behind a bar that for a moment he actually can't speak, which is ridiculous.

"Hello," Eliot says, apparently unaware of Q’s sudden mutism, coming round to lean against Q’s side of the counter, and Quentin abruptly has no idea what he normally does with his hands.

Eliot has these big eyes and a broad smile and long, long limbs, and Quentin thinks, if they were to date, Eliot would look at him like that every day. Q sort of really, really hopes he's right about that, so much so that he can't think about it too much, not letting himself want something he isn't sure he can have.

"Why did you make peaches and plums?" he says, rapid-fire, just so he can fucking say something, and Eliot looks instantly amused.

"Sorry?"

"Your cookies." Quentin waves a hand at the plates on the counter. "You made peach and plum-shaped cookies. " He takes a breath, because Eliot is still looking at him like he's trying not to laugh, and it's riling Q up more than it should.

"Go on," El prompts, the corners of his mouth twitching.

"Most people don't mock the memories of their friends by sending them cookies," Q says and folds his arms.

"I didn't send you cookies," Eliot points out, after a beat. "I made something I liked. What can I say, I make a mean sugar cookie."

"They’re fruit," Q says. "Those cookies had never been mean in their lives."

Elliot laughs properly. Q stares at his mouth.

"Are we still?" he blurts, needing to know right then how far he can let himself take that train of thought. "Would you say yes if I asked you on, like, a date?"

"Did you think I should?" Eliot asks, evenly, folding his arms exactly like Quentin has done.

"I do," says Quentin, "I just," and he doesn't normally trip over his own tongue like this, and it's really fucking frustrating. He sighs, hard, and just goes for honesty. "I hope you do."

Eliot’s face lights up immediately, and Quentin’s heart is pounding, and he deflects because he can't cope with anything right now.

"Why?" he demands, and Eliot looks slightly confused.

"Why what?"

"The peaches and plums," Q says, and this whole conversation is ridiculous but Quentin can't get it back under control. "Why did you make them?"

There's a real grin tugging at Eliot’s mouth, full-fledged but hiding, and his eyes are really, really dark. "I thought it would be cute," he says.

Quentin is so fucking attracted to him it feels like he is actually losing brain cells.

He can't come up with anything better fast enough, so: "That wasn't." He winces as he hears himself hear it, but whatever, it's not like Q has been flush with dignity today. He tries not to mind.

Eliot shrugs. "I wasn't mocking you," he says like he knows Q needs to hear it, and he crooks one finger to get Q to lean forward. Q knows he's gone red, knows Eliot makes him blush more than anyone he's ever met, but he does it anyway.

Eliot’s mouth brushes the curve of Quentin’s ear; Q thinks determinedly about broken coffee cups and Fillorian crowns, willing his heart rate down. Eliot says, his voice practically obscene, "I'm not always very nice," and holy shit, what is Quentin supposed to do with that other than try not to just die on the spot.

Eliot pulls away, looking exceptionally pleased with himself. Q’s stomach feels like there's a whole herd of ponies trampling over everything in there.

"Yeah?" Q says, fighting to keep his voice steady, standing his ground. "Well, neither am I."

They stare at each other for a minute, and it's so charged it's like someone has ripped all the air out of the room just to make Q’s pulse skyrocket, but then someone laughs in the living room, and they both jump, and the air comes rushing back in. They both laugh, sort of shakily, and Eliot rubs a hand over his face.

"Jesus," he says.

"Jesus fucking Christ," says Q, because he always tries to go one better, and Eliot flashes him a grin through his fingers like he knows.

Q says, pretty sure now, "So, we're dating, right?" 

And Eliot says, "We'd damn well better be."

Q hasn't felt this good since he stepped foot in Fillory for the first time.

"I think," he says, "I think we should do something soon. We should, like, go on a date. Like, really soon."

Eliot laughs again, and Q laughs too, but his eyes go straight to how Eliot’s shirt pulls away from where it's tucked loosely into his pants as Eliot moves, showing a cent-sized flash of pale skin. He wants to reach out and press his fingers to Eliot’s hips, work his way up under the sides of his shirt, and make him shiver.  
"All right," Eliot says, and he's looking at Q so fondly that he almost wants to look over his shoulder, check it's not misdirected. "Tonight."

"Tonight?" says Q, because he can't help it. "Someone's keen."

Eliot goes red this time, but says, undeterred, "I'll cook."

"Nothing fruit-shaped, right?" Q asks.

"Not in sight."

"All right," Q says. He folds his arms, suddenly self-conscious again, out on a limb.   
There's this stupid sort of moment where they're just grinning at each other, and Q has absolutely no idea what he's supposed to do next but he's still unreasonably annoyed when his phone goes off in his pocket.

It's Julia.

dude if you're not banging him on the counter rn could you get more cookies? but not if you're playing the biscuit game, there are limits to my cravings

Q makes a strangled noise and pockets his phone quickly.

"What's up?" says Eliot, which doesn't help at all.

"Nothing," says Q, "work stuff." He doesn't need to be the color of Mars for this to be an obvious lie: anyone who's been around him for more than about thirty seconds in his life would probably balk at hearing him use the words "work" and "nothing" in the same sentence without, like, having a stroke or something. Eliot seems to be having a similar reaction, only with his eyebrow. It's really fucking impressive. Then Eliot gives him this big-eyed, understanding look like he knows exactly what's going on in Quentin’s head, which means that it must be deliberate when he pitches his voice low and says, "See you tonight, then."

Q’s mouth is dry, anticipatory, and he says, "Yeah," and, oh god, he is in so freaking far over his head.


End file.
